This is what one James Robbins found out when he stood trial for drug
dealing in
New York last year. US law decrees that selling drugs within 1000
feet of a school
carries extra penalties. Unfortunately, Robbins had been caught
within that
radius, so his lawyer decided simply to change the metric. He argued
that the Euclidean
metric, which measures distances along straight lines between
points, should
be replaced by a "Taxicab metric", which measures distances along
the roads
a taxi, or a pedestrian, has to take to get from point to point. After
all, students from the school in question are unlikely to walk through brick
walls. According
to this new metric, Robbins was 1254 feet away from the school: 764
feet north
along Eighth Avenue and 490 feet west along 43rd Street. Alas, judge
and jury were unimpressed by this mathematical trickery and Robbins lost.